Feed

Skyscraper Living

By Kim Velsey 11/07/12 2:08pm

Skyscraper Living

Extell wants to say thank you. (Getty).

Extell Development Thanks Everybody for Cleaning Up Its One57 Crane Mess

Last week was a difficult week one for many businesses that call the city home. Among them Extell, whose 26,000-pound crane boom dangled perilously over West 57th Street for days on end after it was torn asunder from the crane in the hurricane’s high winds.

The construction disaster is, at the moment, being chalked up to a freak accident—although an extensive investigation is underway, The New York Times reports that the crane was inspected a week before the storm and found to be in good shape—it was a blow to Extell’s ego. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/05/12 9:08am

Skyscraper Living

The boom is back, but the street is not. (Getty)

Even Though West 57th Street Has Reopened, One57′s Powerless Neighbors Wait to Move Back

It’s true of communities across the city, so why not West 57th Street? From the Rockaways to Staten Island, people have returned to their homes and businesses but found them without power, and the same seems to be going for the one-block stretch of the city that was shut down after the crane boom of One57 snapped back.

Yesterday, the city secured the crane boom to the side of the building, a day ahead of scheduled, and reopened the street. But that does not mean life is yet back to normal. According to a number of people on the street, they remain without electricity or heat—even though Con Ed claims otherwise. “They said we couldn’t expect anything before noon,” Daniel Van Doren, whose family owns 130 West 57th Street, told The Observer in a phone interview from his MetroNorth train headed to the city.

“Just like the rest of this debacle, Con Ed is not giving much detail,” Mr. Van Doren added. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/04/12 11:09pm

Skyscraper Living

Boom! (Getty)

One57 Crane Is Secure, West 57th Street Block Reopens a Day Early

Well, the recovery continues faster than expected in New York. We’ve got subways almost miraculously coming back to life after flooding throughout the system, and now the securing of the crane boom dangling over West 57th Street has been completed a day ahead of schedule, wrapping up tonight rather than Monday night as the mayor had previously predicted.

It will still be weeks before the crane—whose boom was almost torn asunder during last week’s hurricane—can be removed and construction can resume on the billionaire-beloved One57 tower. Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri’s full statement on the operation is below. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/02/12 3:52pm

Skyscraper Living

Hang on. (Getty)

One57 Crane Repairs Will Begin Tomorrow, Block Could Open Monday Night

The crane that snapped back at One57 is still hanging precariously over Midtown, but the city is preparing a plan to secure the boom on the billionaire-beloved building that will commence tomorrow and should be completed by Monday night, Mayor Bloomberg announced at his press briefing this afternoon.

“Tomorrow, work on securing the crane will begin,” he said. “It’s approximately a 36 hour operation, and the goal is to remove the vacate order to allow people in the vicinity to return to their homes and offices by Monday night. We’ve just got to make sure we do this in a way that doesn’t cost any lives.” Read More

By Kim Velsey 10/29/12 7:30pm

Skyscraper Living

The bathtub in the unoccupied New York by Gehry penthouse. No water rippling in this store.

Skyscrapers May Shiver and Sway, but They’re Perfectly Safe (Just Stay Away From the Windows)

“You can tell the building is rocking back and forth because you can see the pocket doors hitting the wall,” said Eric Williams, a computer engineer waiting out Hurricane Sandy in his apartment on the 46th floor of the W Hotel and Residences in the Financial District. “It’s such a slow sway you don’t really see it, but you can feel it.”

Most of the building had been evacuated because of its proximity to the water, and he’d just received an email from the building management warning residents that the power would be shut off in the next hour, basically nixing elevator use, but he and his roommate were planning to wait it out. They didn’t fear floods on the 46th floor, but both of them were motion sick. He couldn’t see the building’s sway in glasses of water, but it was visible in the pots of water they’d filled in preparation for outages, a slow ripple from one side to the other, as though a hand were gently shaking the pots back and forth. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/29/12 3:02pm

Skyscraper Living

Hurricane Sandy Bears Down On U.S. Mid-Atlantic Coastline

Crane Collapses at One57, Developer Gary Barnett Hopes ‘No One Gets Hurt’ [Updated]

Sometime this afternoon, the boom of a crane atop One57 snapped back and now hangs precariously from the cab of the crane. So far nothing has fallen from the structure.

“Can’t talk now but we don’t know anything yet,” Gary Barnett, developer of One57, just told The Observer in a brief phone interview. “We’re doing everything we can, and hopefully no one is going to get hurt.” Read More

By Kim Velsey 10/25/12 2:58pm

Skyscraper Living

New York's priciest zip codes, based on closing costs, are all in Lower Manhattan (Propertyshark.com)

The UES Isn’t the Nation’s Priciest Zip Code—It’s Not Even New York’s

We don’t like to gloat, but in this case we just couldn’t help it. We told you so Forbes! As The Observer argued when the magazine released its headline-hogging Most Expensive Zip Code list, the Upper East Side zip code 10065 was almost certainly not the nation’s most expensive zip code. Now there’s data to prove it.

According to a new report from the number crunching wizards over at PropertyShark, the Upper East Side is not even New York’s most expensive zip code. And PropertyShark’s report includes co-ops. Unlike Forbes’. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/22/12 2:07pm

Skyscraper Living

The king has his crown. (Matt Chaban)

One57 Gets Its Crown—But Who Really Designed It?

The MAS Summit has offered plenty of rousing discussions about design and architecture in the city, and cities around the globe, for the past two days at the Time Warner Center. But there was also an unexpected architectural treat outside. As readers are well aware, we here at The Observer are rather obsessed with One57 and its skyward march. Now, for the first time we have seen, the curving cornice of the building has been installed.

This revelation was exciting not simply for the continued progress of the city’s biggest apartment building and the reshaping of the Central Park skyline, but also because of something we learned while reporting this week’s feature on Goldstein, Hill & West: it was they, and not the celebrated Christian de Portzamparc, who is responsible for the crown of One57. Read More

By Kim Velsey 10/18/12 6:26pm

Skyscraper Living

Beautiful and sad in her tower high above the city.

Billionaires Rush in: Is One57 Running Out of Apartments?

Talk about money burning a hole in your pocket. Millionaires and billionaires apparently have quite a conflagration in their pants when it comes to One57, that shining spire rising in the sky. The still-being-built building, which has done more than $1 billion in sales, apparently racked up $300 million just this summer, according to The New York Post. Which is basically the equivalent of a penthouse (the priciest is in contract for more than $90 million) and three or four lesser units (say a few $17 million spreads on lower floors). Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/17/12 10:01am

Skyscraper Living

Picture 7

The World of Goldstein, Hill & West: Mapping the Architect’s 70 Buildings

Over the past few years, Goldstein, Hill & West has quietly become one of the city’s most dominant architecture firms. It can be hard to conceive of their influence until you see it on a map. Sure, New York is home to millions of buildings, but how many architects can claim some 70 buildings, many of them very big, many of them designed or built only in the span of a few years. Read More